Courageous Cleric.

Missionary’s Part in Austra lasian History.

THE Pitt Street Congregational Church, Sydney, celebrated its centenary early in May.

There would not appear to be much connection with this fact and the Pacific Islands; but the event the Church cele brated was directly concerned with cer tain happenings off the island of La Christiana in the Marquesas Group in May, 1798.

A writer in the Sydney “Daily Tele graph”, of May 3, tells the story.

"While beating to windward off the island of La Christiana in the Marquesas Group on May 22, 1798, Edmund Fan ning, master of the New York schooner ‘Betsy’ (bound from Mas-a-Fuero to Canton with sealskins) saw a small canoe battling through the wind and rain. In it were two men.

“Earlier in the day a number of Mar quesan canoes, their prows hung with human skulls, had been round the ‘Betsy’, but heavy squalls had driven them to take shelter. Wondering what this lone canoe wanted, Fanning hove the schooner to and waited.

“Each of the men in the canoe wore only the maro, a piece of bark cloth wound round his loins. But, while one had the exaggerated tattooing of the Marquesans, the other was a white man.

“As they came alongside, he called out: ‘Sir, 1 am an Englishman, and now call on you, as 1 have come to you, to preserve my life.’

“When he had been helped on board, the white man said: ‘I am a missionary,’ and bowed his head in prayer.

“He was William Pascoe Crook, later one of the pioneers of the Congrega tional faith in Australia. It was he who, in 1810, formed with four other resi dents of Sydney the first Congregational Church in the Southern Hemisphere.

“Crook had been sent to the South Seas in 1796 in the missionary ship ‘Duff’, fitted out by the London Mis sionary Society. He had been for some months on La Christiana, and had at first taught with some acceptance.

“Then an Italian seaman deserted from a passing vessel. This renegade brought ashore a musket, some powder, and balls, and became a sort of Minister of War and Prime Minister to the lead ing chief of the island.

“Playing on a smaller stage the part taken by other white men in the Ha waiian islands and in Fiji, the Italian inspired the chief with the idea of mak

ing himself the ruler of the group. He stirred him up to make war on the other tribes of La Christiana and also on the neighbouring island of La Dominica.

“Crook felt it his duty, as he told Fan ning, to protest against the ‘wicked plans and abominable practices’ of this Italian.

So the Italian instigated his patron to murder Crook. He was, in fact, ‘ex tremely solicitous that they should mas sacre Mr. Crook’.

“The Italian also planned to entice the ‘Betsy’ into the harbour, seize her, massacre all on board, and plunder the vessel. So Crook and a friendly chief had put off, under cover of the storm, to warn the ‘Betsy’s’ crew.

“Crook left the ‘Betsy’ again at Nil kahiva, in the Marquesas, where Fan ning won the friendship of the chief by giving him a jacket of red flannel.

“It was here that Fanning noticed in a canoe something wrapped in palm leaves. He found it to be a piece of baked human flesh. The Marquesan wrapped it up again, remarking that as soon as he was hungry he would eat it.

He added that it was very good eating.

“Crook found his way back to Eng land, came with Collins to Port Phillip in 1803, went on to Sydney, and later acted as chaplain for the rebels after the deposition of Governor Bligh.

“In 1815 he went to Tahiti, where he was a missionary for 15 years. He died in Melbourne in 1846.”